Novice-friendly all-in-one photo cataloguing and editing software

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Photoshop Elements is not one program but two. The Organizer is very good image cataloguing tool, and an application in its own right. And Elements itself is far more than a dumbed-down Photoshop. Its Quick and Guided modes are designed to make image-editing easier for beginners, and there's, nothing wrong with that, but in its Full mode it can do the vast majority of things that Photoshop can. But Elements was this good already, even before this latest version.

We liked

Elements 10 combines a great cataloguing tool with an image-editor that's almost as powerful as Photoshop but a fraction of the price, and with its three editing modes it caters for everyone from novices to photo experts.

We disliked

Half-successful new visual search tools, some new image effects, enhancements to the crop and text tools and new creation templates don't make much of an upgrade. There's a bit more icing, but the cake's the same.

Verdict

The enhancements in Elements 10, even though they are fairly numerous, are pretty minor. You're just getting more of what it did already rather than anything genuinely new. And there does seem to be a trend towards features, like the visual search tools, which sometimes yield good results and sometimes don't. Maybe the problem is that there's nothing more for Adobe to add? If so, that's a testament to how good Photoshop Elements has become, but also explains why Elements 10 leaves a vague feeling of disappointment.